Matchmaking Ninjas
by SageK
Summary: Mike notices the new way Noah has been looking at Rachel since they got back from winter break.


Sometimes, being the quiet guy amongst a group of loud, vibrant personalities paid off. Mike Chang knew he observed a lot more than any of his team mates, Football or Glee, knew. Usually, he kept what he learned to himself, but in this instance, he felt he had to speak up.

The first person he recruited to his scheme was Tina, his girlfriend. Turned out, she agreed with him 100% and knew Mercedes would be down with things as well. Everything else had spiraled from there.

Which was how Mike found himself standing in his rec room, looking around at the curious faces of most of his fellow Glee Clubbers. Tina was smiling supportively, while Mercedes, Artie, Brittany, Santana, Quinn, Sam, Kurt (Mercedes had called him) and Blaine (who seemed to be attached to Kurt at the hip) looked curious. Finn hadn't been invited, for obvious reasons, and the two people who were the focus of the meeting clearly couldn't be there.

"Okay," he said, clearing his throat and calling the meeting to order, "I don't know about all of you, but since we've been back from Winter break, there's been…a thing with Puck and Rachel."

Around the room heads nodded and Kurt said, "When hasn't there been?"

That was true enough. Ever since he joined Glee club, Puck seemed to have developed a Rachel Berry sized soft spot in his carefully cultivated badass exterior. Last year, he'd chosen Glee over football for her and after the egging incident, he'd been ready to do physical damage to Jesse in return for how the ass treated Rachel.

But this was different.

"This is even more extreme," Mike said seriously and clearly the others agreed.

"Yeah," Sam piped up. "Karofsky was stalking down the hall with a slushee the other day, headed for Rachel, then Puck popped out of one of the class rooms and sent him running with a look. Not that I really blame him, cause it was, like, a 'Imma rip off your arms and beat you to death with them if you even think about doing what I think you're thinking about doing' look."

"So Puck is carrying a horn for Berry, this is not news," Santana said, tone indicating that she was bored with the conversation already.

"But did you see how Rachel actually snapped at Finn when he made a comment about it only being a matter of time before Puck ended up back in juvie. I'm surprised Finn didn't get a case of whiplash," Artie said and the Latina cheerleader conceded to that with a nod.

Brittany, perched on Artie's lap, asked, "I get that they like each other, but why are we all here?"

"Because the two of them need a push," Mike said and he got a bit nervous as the eyes of every girl in the room (plus Kurt) took on a slightly scary gleam. "And I figure, between all of us, we could get the together. Like that scary woman on that Bravo show my mom watches. But more badass."

"Matchmaking: Stealth, Badass Ninja style."

That became the motto for Operation Puckleberry. Kurt was talking about making T-shirts.

* * *

They started out simply enough by rigging the next duets assignment in Glee, making sure Puck and Rachel got assigned to sing together. It wasn't a difficult task and they hoped the chemistry the pair had would simply boil over…but apparently the two were far too entrenched in the whole denial thing they were rocking.

Their performance of True Companion by Marc Cohen had been awesome and you could practically see the sparks, but they hadn't caved. So, phase two of the plan was less subtle.

An attempt was made by putting anonymous love notes in Rachel's locker, but that only made her think Jacob Ben-Israel was stepping up his creepy stalking again. On the plus side, Puck had taken to playing body guard more than ever and they were pretty sure Jacob peed his pants the other day when he passed too close to Rachel and Puck's reaction was an actual snarl.

Next step.

Tina and Quinn let Rachel 'overhear' them discussing the fact that they'd been told by Mike and Sam that Puck liked Rachel. Mike and Sam pulled the same scam on Puck. Since most information at a high school traveled by way of 'heard from a friend of a friend' communication, this was completely logical.

Santana played her part by keeping Finn distracted. Broken up or not, he had a habit of getting cranky when confronted by the idea of one of his ex's dating. He occasionally bristled over Sam's dating Quinn, but seemed to reign in the worst of those impulses. Everyone knew a Puck/Rachel pairing would probably cause him to throw a gigantic hissy fit, so Santana had given a wicked smile and offered to put him in a good mood.

No one really wanted to talk about that.

Fortunately, this step seemed to do the trick and the pair of them showed up at school together the next morning, much happier and calmer than they had been for a while. Rachel's arm was looped through Puck's and they were both smiling.

After several minutes, this seemed to register on Finn and he scowled, opening his mouth, but let out a yelp when Santana sank her nails into his thigh and hissed, "Shut up or next time I grab something higher."

Finn paled and everyone else shared satisfied smiled.

Job well done.

* * *

Comments, pretty please?


End file.
